A couple of decades ago, I fancied myself a cyclist. A serious person, for whom bikes were all and all, etc.

So I bought a workstand. Workstands are wonderful bits of kit that let you clamp a bike (ideally by the seatpost) and turn it to any and all orientations you might need to work on it–whether it’s the gearing, shifters, whatever.

A year or so ago, I noticed that a critical part of my workstand–a bolt that was threaded in different directions at each end–was bent. The result was that I could no longer effectively lock a bike into the workstand. I don’t know when it happened–it could have been a decade ago when I moved to Connecticut, for all I know. I had not used the workstand very much since then. Maybe the stand (the based folded up) had fallen from storage at some point. Who knows? But without that bolt, it was toast.

I contacted the manufacturer to see if a replacement part was available, but none was.

So this past spring, when my community did its bulk trash pickup, I set the workstand at the curb, and it vanished.

This past Saturday, I was pumping my tires to ride sweep on a 20-mile fundraising ride when I remembered that the front fender was a little loose, and had been rattling. I immediately thought of clamping my bike into the workstand but–of course–no workstand. What to do?

I looked around and found a couple of rugs, set them on the floor, then flipped the bike over, the way I used to do when I was a kid and hadn’t heard of Brooks saddles.

I disconnected the dynohub, popped out the front wheel, and fixed the fender handily in a matter of seconds. The rugs kept the saddle (and handlebars/brake lever tops) from getting damaged, and it was much easier to remount the front wheel this way than it would have been if the bike was in a workstand.

Done and done.

I guess I was a serious rider in those days. But I wonder what else I could have spent the $100 or so from the workstand on…